Electronic Controllers
There are known peripheral devices that can wirelessly control computers, robotics, electrical appliances, and/or computers. Most of these devices comprise electronic controllers such as a keyboard, mouse, handheld joystick, remote, or switch. Electronic controllers have enhanced the convenience of human interaction with electronic apparatus at a distance. Most of these electronic controllers are handheld devices which are intended to control one device with correlating capability. For example, a remote for a car alarm may only control the car it was designed for. Furthermore, the remote for a car alarm may not be used for controlling a television, computer, etc. due to differences in compatibility of the signal transmitted.
The convenience brought by electronic controllers is very beneficial. However, electronic controllers can be burdensome when more than one device is carried at a time. This problem is addressed by making a device which can act as an electronic controller for a plurality of electrical apparatus.
Wearable Electronic Devices
There have been many instances of wearable devices such as devices worn on the head, arm, wrist, leg, ear, finger, and other body parts that perform functions such as fitness tracking, phone call notifications, SMS notifications, using short-distance wireless technologies such as Bluetooth to communicate with a mobile device application for record keeping and processing. These devices were often dependent on connection to a smartphone device to offer full functionality. In recent years, wearable technology has become more common. For example, several companies recently developed standalone wrist-worn products also known as smartwatches, media players, and fitness bracelets, which can operate independently without the need of a smartphone.
Even with the existence of wrist-worn wearable devices, one is still required to interact with the device with the hand opposite to which the device is being worn. Attempts have been made to use myoelectrical signals from the muscles of the hand and control devices. An electromyography (EMG) device was developed which utilizes the myoelectric signals from one's hand. (See U.S. Pat. No. 6,244,873 B1, incorporated herein by reference.) Although EMG gesture control has been shown as a precise way in terms of gesture control, it often has flaws in recognition and may bring undesired results, for example, when one's natural physical movement matches a gesture detected by the EMG system. For example, one may pick up a glass of water but accidentally trigger an EMG signal which subsequently becomes recognized as a gesture. (See Peters, T. (2014). An Assessment of Single-Channel EMG Sensing for Gestural Input; incorporated herein by reference.) The present invention avoids this issue by providing a solution for precise gesture detection without the flaws in EMG technology.
It is an object of the present invention to provide wearable devices with the ability to control more than one device at a time, having long-range capabilities, and the ability to calculate palm orientation in correlation with the force exerted by palm or wrist of the same hand for gesture recognition.
Proximity Devices
IR (infrared)-proximity sensors can sense the presence of a solid object, its distance from a reference, or both. Current applications include speed detection, sensing of the hand in automatic faucets, automatic counting or detection of objects on conveyer belts, and paper-edge detection in printers. The latest-generation smartphones, for example, can turn off an LCD touchscreen to prevent the accidental activation of soft buttons when the screen touches one's ear.
To sense an object, a proximity sensor transmits IR pulses toward the object and then “listens” to detect any pulses that reflect back. An IR LED transmits the IR signals, and an IR photodetector detects the reflected signal. The strength of this reflected signal is inversely proportional to the distance of the object from the IR transceiver. Because the reflected IR signal is stronger when the object is close, the output of the photodiode can be calibrated to determine the trigger distance of an object. The trigger distance indicates the threshold for making a decision on whether an object is present.
While infrared sensing is advantageous to human interaction with devices, the current implementation of IR sensing faces issues in accurately detecting the distance of an object when another foreign object physically reflects the signal. Another issue arises when a proximity device is placed under a bright lamp or direct sunlight. Since ambient light generally comprises a certain degree of infrared wavelengths, undesired optical interference can occur that can inhibit the accuracy of detection for gesture control. Attempts have been made to use infrared sensing to recognize gestures made by hand. For example, a group implemented a wrist-worn gesture recognition device with basic IR emitters and receivers but faced issues of environment conditions such as sunlight and also required the use of the hand opposite to which the device was worn. (See Kim, J., He, J., Lyons, K., & Starner, T. (2007, October). The gesture watch: A wireless contact-free gesture based wrist interface. In Wearable Computers, 2007 11th IEEE International Symposium on (pp. 15-22). IEEE; incorporated herein by reference.)
It is an object of the present invention to provide proximity sensing devices having the capability of gesture recognition by way of wrist and palm motions of one's hand. It is a further object of the present invention to overcome the issue of interference via a modulated IR sensor array containing two or more sensors wrapped around one's wrist. It will be appreciated by those skilled in the art that such a modulated IR sensor array can provide three-dimensional data and even detect gestures which are unobtainable by standard IR proximity sensors.
Home Automation Devices
Home automation (HA) has emerged incrementally throughout the past decades. The purpose of home automation is to enhance one's daily life through devices that can be controlled with more than just local physical interaction with a device. Home automation introduces a vision for homes and offices having remote controlled appliances and appliances that can be controlled with seamless interaction. For example, a simple home automation device could be a remote controlled AC outlet, which comprises a remote and a receiver in the form of a wall outlet. With this device, a user is able to control an appliance or electrical device beyond physical reach. As the home automation technology continued to improve, home networking and appliance control grew into a field known as IoT (Internet of Things). The field of IoT introduces devices with capabilities to perform two main tasks—connect to a predefined webserver, and to control one or more appliances or electronic devices. Throughout the technological advances, the most prominent method of home automation is with the current technology of IoT.
While it is beneficial for internet-connected mobile phones and computers to control IoT enabled appliances and electronics, an issue arises when control of such appliances is limited to the manipulation of mobile phones and computers. As wearable electronic devices were slowly introduced into the field of IoT, their applications were directed towards the use of collecting fitness data and/or displaying smartphone notifications and there have been significant improvements in these regards, but such devices have not been developed for direct control over home automation.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a system comprising a wearable device for the wrist employing modulated IR sensor arrays that can control IoT enabled devices.